


A Multitude of Sins

by slipnslither



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Angel!Luffy, Demon!Katakuri, Luffy Is a Little Shit, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 13:49:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20408779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slipnslither/pseuds/slipnslither
Summary: Katakuri's priorities were distinctly not in line with those of heaven, but he was sure that murder was not, generally, something an angel was supposed to find amusing.(Katakuri is sent to the mortal realm to deal with an angel who has stepped out of line. The angel, it turns out, isn't very good at being an angel.)





	A Multitude of Sins

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'd!

Earth was just as disdainfully miserable as Katakuri remembered. The human drivel made their way past him in unseeing swarms, not aware of his presence despite the way he towered over them. It was as though they subconsciously knew to swerve slightly to the right just in time to avoid him. It was something that all demons could do, but Katakuri had always found that particular power of his rather amusing.

He didn’t often come to Earth; most of his work kept him busy in the underworld, sorting new entrants into their respective levels of the realm and doing what needed to be done in his own particular area, which often resulted in a cacophony of screams and no small amount of blood. He didn’t feel particularly strongly about his job, and a change of pace for a single day was refreshing, not to mention the fact that his trident was being cleaned.

As he walked further up the path, the crowds heading to the train station began to dwindle, and finally he spotted his destination—a park, barely large enough to be classified as one. It was only a small cluster of trees and a patch of green, two old benches on either side of an ugly fountain that spurted dirty water. It didn't strike Katakuri as the sort of place an angel would have lingered.

When Brulee had relayed Mama's information to him, she had explained that an angel had been causing them trouble. That in itself was an anomaly. Angels were the peacekeepers, abiding and often enforcing the laws of both the mortal and immortal planes. Katakuri had been sent to discipline other demons who had strayed too far from their duties before, but an angel causing trouble was near unheard of.

Stopping by the fountain, Katakuri looked down into the murky water; he towered above its surface, but could still see his reflection. Thick, marble-black horns curled up from his forehead. His teeth were wicked sharp and glinted in the sunlight, and a stitched scar tore its jagged way from the corners of his mouth up his cheeks, giving him a permanent ghastly smile.

The horns and teeth had been part of the package when he had become a demon after the end of his first life, but the scar was a remnant of his human days. Back then, he recalled, he would wear a mask to cover it up. He could scarcely remember why. If anything, now, he thought it rather added to the aesthetic of it all.

A stirring came from his left, the barest rustle of the leaves in a tree, and Katakuri glanced over to see a blinding white wing peeking out from beneath the cover of the branches. It was feathery like that of a bird, but much larger, and Katakuri gave a low sigh.

“I can see you,” he said.

The wing didn’t move, and neither did Katakuri. He waited only a moment before crossing his arms.

“Angel,” he said. “Come out, I know you’re there.”

The wing gave a shuffle as though it was irritated at having been caught, and then folded upwards to be hidden by the green of the leaves. A moment later a figure leapt out from the top of the tree, silhouetted by the sunlight behind them and hovering in the air. Katakuri had to squint to look at them.

It was a boy. He could not have been over twenty when he had died, there were no wrinkles nor real traces of age around his face. His flapping wings slowed their pace as he lowered himself to the ground. He wore denim shorts and a white button-up shirt, untucked, and Katakuri noted messy black hair and a small scar below his left eye. 

The angel looked up at him and said, “You’re big.”

Katakuri blinked. That wasn’t the customary greeting he had received from angels in the past.

“Maybe you’re just small,” Katakuri found himself saying in reply.

“I’m human-sized,” said the angel. “You’re like, _big_-big.”

The relationship between angels and demons was not, traditionally, a friendly one. When Katakuri had interacted with them in the past it had been strictly business, and they had a distinct wariness about them, ready to snap at any moment should trouble arise. None of them had ever called him ‘big’, or made any attempt at small talk in general. But then, he recalled that this angel in particular was supposedly a troublemaker, and that was what he had come here for.

“I hear you’ve been causing disturbances.” Katakuri said. “I’ve been sent by the emperor of my realm to ask that you stop.”

The angel looked at him and furrowed his eyebrows. "Disturbances?" He scratched the back of his neck, and his wings gave a curious flap as he did so. "What did I do?"

"Apparently, you've been leading those fated for the underworld to your realm instead, despite them not being qualified." Katakuri recalled that their numbers had been dwindling a little, and he and his siblings had seriously doubted that humankind had gained an unexpected and wide-sweeping awareness of their own immorality. "I've been sent to demand that you leave our people to us and not dabble in where they end up. It's not your concern."

Katakuri frowned, then, as something occurred to him. "And if you didn't know why I came here, why were you hiding?"

The angel gave a short scoff. "If you saw a tattooed demon guy who's built like a tank with big-ass horns and pointy teeth walking your way, are you just gonna stand there?"

For some odd reason, Katakuri felt the corner of his mouth turning upwards. "I guess not," he said. 

The angel sprung into the air, wings flapping at a lazy yet consistent pace so that he could lift himself up to meet Katakuri at eye level. He hovered there, and for a moment they only looked at each other. The angel's irises, Katakuri realised, were like melted gold.

He gave a shrug of his shoulders when he spoke. "People go to hell for…" The angel paused. "Well, dumb shit. Just didn't seem fair to me."

Katakuri tried not to linger on the fact that he had never heard an angel say anything more profane than 'poppycock', while this one had said 'ass' and 'shit' in less than a minute. 

"They should have thought about that when they were alive," Katakuri countered. "Our only job now is to make sure they end up where they belong."

"C'mon," the angel pointed at Katakuri with his forefinger. "You probably wished you had a second chance too, right? I bet you didn't go to hell for anything big."

Katakuri shrugged, looking past the angel's wings to the trees and town beyond. "Nothing major," Katakuri kept his tone light, knowing that soon the angel would gasp or recoil in horror. "Just a little theft, some minor blackmail, a bit of torture. Couple of murders, too."

The angel laughed, loud and carefree. 

"Okay, that's pretty bad," he said, with a wide, dazzling smile.

Katakuri’s priorities were distinctly not in line with those of heaven, but he was sure that murder was not, generally, something an angel was supposed to find amusing.

"My name's Luffy," the angel said, as if he hadn't just been laughing about major sins. "What's yours?"

"Katakuri," he replied, because at this point his curiosity about the bizarre young creature was beginning to outweigh any real interest he had in his job—not that there had been much to begin with.

"That's a cool name." Luffy said.

"Uh." Katakuri wasn't quite sure how to respond. "Thank you?"

Luffy gave that loud, jovial laugh again. "I didn't think demons said thank you."

"I didn't think angels complimented demons."

Luffy hummed in thought. "Yeah, I don't think we're supposed to." He shrugged, as if he were merely brushing the rules of the afterlife off of his shoulder. "But whatever."

For a moment, Katakuri could only gaze at the odd creature. He was unlike any angel—or demon—that Katakuri had ever met before; a colourful, vibrant spark of life had somehow managed to cling to him even after death. There was a distinctly human aura about him, something that allowed him to conveniently disregard what should have been the staunch rules of the hereafter.

“For an angel," Katakuri said to him, "You break a lot of rules.”

“For a demon, you follow a lotta rules.” Luffy said back immediately Katakuri couldn't quite bring himself to argue.

Luffy drew a little closer, the sound of his wings almost imperceptible. Katakuri's arrow-tipped tail swished back and forth and Luffy drew closer, closer, with a deep focus, and Katakuri narrowed his crimson eyes as they met gold. 

And then Luffy pulled back, a wide smile across his face.

"You like donuts, huh?" 

"I—" Katakuri stared. "How did you know that?"

"It's an angel thing," Luffy said. "Well, not everyone can do it, but apparently I can read stuff about people. Nothing major, just their likes and dislikes, that kinda thing. Didn’t think it’d work on a demon."

Luffy turned and began to flap away towards the path that led into the city proper, his pace indicating that he wanted to be followed. Katakuri hardly needed persuading, by this point, staying at Luffy's side as they went.

"So, like an empath?" Katakuri asked.

"I dunno what that is, but it sounds about right," He said, turning over in mid-air to look at Katakuri. Luffy had his feet up, ankles crossed over one another and his hands behind his head, as if he were lying in bed. Only his wings were still moving, carrying him leisurely in his desired direction. Katakuri felt a small pang of envy. Walking wasn't nearly as fun as flying seemed to be.

They reached their destination, a little bakery on a street corner. Luffy dropped down to his feet and his wings shuffled a moment, folding themselves neatly at his back.

"Here we are!" Luffy said. "Best donuts in town, from what I heard."

"That's fascinating." Katakuri said. "But why, exactly, are we here?"

Luffy looked up at him. "You said I'm in trouble, right?" He gestured through the window, to the glazed confections that glittered sweet temptation in the sunlight. "If I get you a few of those, we can just forget about all this, okay?"

Katakuri couldn't help but give a short laugh. "Are you trying to bribe me?"

"That depends," Luffy grinned, "On whether or not you take it."

Katakuri crossed his arms, looking through the glass and into the bakery and trying not to make his overwhelming urge to gorge himself on donuts woefully obvious. Behind the counter was a small woman, with glasses and dark hair. She seemed like the heaven type. 

"Correct me if I'm wrong — you're the angel, after all," Katakuri said. "But isn't bribery a sin?"

Luffy hummed in thought, and then scratched the back of his head as though it had never occurred to him. "Does it count as a sin if I'm an angel?"

Katakuri had never contemplated the philosophy of that question before, but he supposed he had never needed to. The angel, Luffy, was clearly an outlier amongst his kind; until now, Katakuri had not even thought it possible that an angel could so willfully go against everything that was ingrained into them. Luffy was proving more and more fascinating by the moment.

“Tell me something,” Katakuri said. “If I were, hypothetically, to take this little bribe of yours, how would you go about it? You can’t exactly stroll in there and ask for a dozen, can you?”

“So you’ll take it?” Luffy replied, ignoring Katakuri’s question.

“I suppose I will. And my job was only to warn you, which I’ve done. Besides,” Katakuri looked down at Luffy, abruptly aware of his smooth skin; despite initial appearances, he realised that Luffy had a surprising amount of meat on his bones, lithe muscle and sinew wound tight and tempting in a handily-sized package. Katakuri swallowed, “I haven’t eaten yet.”

Luffy met his eyes. Katakuri didn’t know what Luffy saw, but something in the gold flickered briefly—it could have been fear, or interest. Katakuri was in two minds about whether or not he wanted to find out.

Gaze drawn back to the window of the bakery, Luffy cracked his knuckles.

“She can’t see us, right?” Luffy said. “I’ll just go in and take ‘em.”

He had already known that would be Luffy’s solution, but hearing an angel admit with such openness to doing something immoral was, for Katakuri, oddly gratifying.

And then Luffy glanced up and gave him a lopsided smirk, the type of smirk that Katakuri had been sure until now an angel could not even envision, let alone have plastered across their face. It was surely far too sinful. 

“Why,” Katakuri smiled. “You little devil.”

**Author's Note:**

> Imma be real with you folks this is maybe one of the worst things I've EVER written so I'm sorry but damn KataLu really has me by the balls and I kinda just wanna prove to myself that I can still, y'know, publish stuff? Maybe I'll actually write something decent for them one day. I'm publishing this at 2:30am before I can chicken out and hate the fic too much so I'M SORRY THAT IT'S UNEDITED. Also yeah it got a bit horny towards the end and yeah maybe I did imply that Katakuri eats flesh but sometimes it just be like that. also yeah this Luffy is a bit of a lil shit but he's fun to write and also I KNOW THE FINAL LINE IS CHEESY BUT FUCK YOU I LOVE IT okay bye
> 
> twitter: @serpenscape


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